Mithridates I of Pontus

Mithridates I of Pontus (333 BC-266 BC) was King of Pontus from 281 to 266 BC, preceding Ariobarzanes of Pontus. A descendant of the Persian shah Darius the Great, he founded a kingdom which would come to be a major Anatolian power in the next few centuries.

Biography
Mithridates belonged to a prominent family of Persian nobility; he was the eighth-generation descendant of Shah Darius the Great of Persia. In 301 BC, his father Mithridates II of Cius was executed by the Macedonian ruler Antigonus I Monophthalmus, who also planned to kill his son Mithridates. However, Antigonus' son Demetrius, of the same age, warned Mithridates of his father's intentions, and Mithridates fled to the fortress of Cimiata in Paphlagonia, where he was joined by troops from several lands in Anatolia. He gradually extended his domains in Pontus before assuming the title of basileus in 281 BC, creating a new kingdom. That same year, he formed an alliance with Bithynia to protect it from Seleucus, and he also acquired Gallic support in repelling Ptolemy I Soter's Egyptian invasion. He died in 266 BC, and his son Ariobarzanes of Pontus succeeded him.